Thursday, April 02, 2009

In keeping with the old saying, March on the farm came in like a lion and out like atwo three lambs. Tuesday evening while Joe and I were maneuvering poor old (and heavy!) Sweet Pea—my beloved pet wether who is unable to get up and walk anymore—into the barn for the night, Annette had two lambs lickety split.

When we went down to make sure the three of them were resting comfortably in their bonding suite before going to bed a few hours later, a quick check of the rest of the prego flock revealed that Chocolate Chip Biscotti had just given birth to a beautiful black girl out in the barnyard—with the cutest little pink nose.

She also has one inverted eyelid, which causes irritation and tearing, and I'm trying to fix it by simply pulling it into place several times a day, rather than resorting to a more complicated procedure. It's worked for me before, so I'm hopeful.

Wednesday morning Amy had twins, and last night sometime between the 10pm check and a 2am check, one of the two still unnamed Katahdin ewes we bought last year from our sheep shearer had twin girls way out in the barnyard.

At 3:30 this morning I finally crawled back into bed, reassured that the three of them were safe and sound in a bonding suite, and while only one of the lambs had nursed, both had drunk a little colostrum from a small syringe that I'd miraculously been able to milk out of not-real-friendly mama.

This morning both lambs were up and seemingly full of energy, but for some reason mama has decided that she only had one lamb, not two, and keeps knocking away the other one every time it gets near her and tries to nurse. Talk about a heartbreaking (and frustrating) sight.

If things don't improve soon, my plan is to see if I can trick the next new mother who has a single lamb into thinking she actually had twins by rubbing the birthing fluid from the newborn baby on the rejected lamb and hoping the mother will accept her—and the lamb (who has already imprinted on her birth mother) will also be amenable to the plan.

If that doesn't work, I'll bring the rejected baby up on a bottle—but unlike Cary (who is doing great by the way), I don't think she'll be let into the living room!

Of course the Nanny Bear is always ready to assist.Oh, baby baby. And so it begins!

Current lamb count:7. Ewe lambs: 5. Ram lambs: 2. Hours of sleep one of us has had in the last two nights: There are certain things it's just better not to count this time of year.

I love lambing season. We have merino sheep who are notoriously bad parents esp if people try to help. All our mob have their lambs way out in the paddock, and I only have to step in if there is a problem. We had twin lambs last year whose mama decided she'd only had one. The other lamb got really good a sneaking in between the back legs where she couldn't reach him, or tell that it wasn't the favourite one. I only had to top up with milk occasionally.

OH MY but that picture of the dog and licking the baby lamb is just too cool--I have always wanted to be on a farm during lambing season and to bottle feed one--but I do hope you can get your twin a new mom--I'll be waiting to hear!!Get some sleep--and I too noticed the new banner--CUTE--Just Di

Loving the new banner - and what adorable lambs - the katahdin really makes for a different lambie doesn't it? No sleep for a while - good that it isn't time for gardening right now in your part of Missouri. Colder here than normal and of course my goat kids are all at least 2 months old now. Baby livestock are just plain cute - lots of work but cute

This is always a welcome and interesting time of year as you share the lambing season with all of us "city folk". Having raised animals too I know there are tough parts and challenges involved, but it is such a joy to hear about the babies!

I think that you have such a wonderful life..I love all of your animals, and can hardly imagine the peace that one must be able to find living on your farm, far away from the craziness of this world..I feel compelled to say (confess) though,that the other night for my son's BDay, we went to a Greek restaurant and my son and I ordered the lamb, and my Mother did not..She said, "I cannot imagine how you can eat lamb...I never eat lamb, as I always see their sweet little faces..."

Congratulations on the new babies! We have goats rather than lambs but I can so relate to what you're going through. I hope the mama accepts the other lamb's baby. We had a goat reject her kid this past January - it was heartbreaking - and we couldn't pass it off to the other mama because she was already nursing twins.

We had a total of eight lambs out of 4 ewes this year; 3 girls, 5 boys. This year was a first in that we had triplets (2 boys, 1 girl) for the first time! That was exciting to see. Thank heavens we've never had a rejection (fingers X'd). I replaced my Dorset ram with a white Dorper ram a couple years ago because I'm getting tired of shearing and they are very hardy too. I'm actually hiring someone to shear for me this year for the first time ever! Congrats on the babies and make sure you get enough rest. (Right now I'm waiting for my cow to calve. She's due ANY TIME now and I think she's having fun making me march out in the middle of the night every night to check on her!)

I think (though you might want to check into it more) that the eyelid thing is genetic. I remember struggling mightily with some corriedale ewe lambs I raised in high school. When you love your animals as much as (I can see) you do, it's hard to cull for bad genetics, but you might want to think about at least not breeding those with that trait.

Love your blog. We are 9 days into our polypay lambing season, and while we haven't had much night duty, The Farmer and the Shepherdess are struggling to keep ahead of the need for "bonding suites". Those rams had all their fun all at once...

HI We live on a small farm in Oregon and raise Kathadin's. We have just finished our lambing season (1 preg ewe still to go) The lambs have a lot of different colors black/brown/choc/spotted and white all to very CUTE

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